Small grey fine line bow tattoo on the lower leg just above the ankle, with sparkly silver ankle boots on a concrete floor.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Small bow tattoo above the ankle

Fine line · Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a small bow tattoo on the lower leg, just above the ankle bone. The bow has a simple outlined shape with light grey shading and a few fine tails. The ink is black and grey against warm skin, and the sparkly silver ankle boots and grey concrete floor fill the rest of the frame.

Fine line Ankle Bow High heel

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You are sewing the last strap by the bench lamp when Mr Adeyemi comes through from the front shop, wiping his hands on his apron. The dancer has sent a boy round to ask whether the boots will be ready. Forty-two silver beads still need to go on the left heel, and the leather is stiff with cold. Tell him yes. Tell him the heels are true and the glitter will hold on the yard floor, where the girls practise in the afternoons before the Crown Ballroom opens above the bakery on Carver Street.

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You know that yard well. The concrete is grey and cracked where the drain runs, and when the sun comes low the boots will throw light across it like something spilled. You tie the final knot, then stop and fasten a small bow of black ribbon to the back of the heel, the way your mother once tied ribbons on your school shoes so you would know them in a crowd. Mr Adeyemi says it is unnecessary. You say it is the only part of the shoe that belongs to you.

On Saturday the hall is hot and loud, and the sprung floor shivers under two hundred pairs of feet. You stand by the cloakroom with a cup of tea gone lukewarm and watch the dancer turn, lift one heel, and let it fall back with a click. The silver catches the lamps. The ribbon flicks once behind her, dark and quick, and the man she is dancing with laughs and says he has never seen a shoe so clever.

You don't tell him that the ribbon was the easy part. Beads can be counted and stitched and forgiven. A bow has to be trusted to stay where it is tied, and you tied it knowing she would not look back at it once, only at the lights.